Gloucestershire's all-vegan football club provides school kids with plant-based meals
Forest Green Rovers have been feeding hungry school kids during the pandemic
Gloucestershire's all-vegan, eco-friendly football club has been helping feed school kids planet-based meals during the pandemic.
Forest Green Rover's club chairman developed a plant-based food range, Devil's Kitchen, in 2018 to supply schools with meat-alternative meals for school children.
But as the pandemic began, Dale Vince ramped up efforts to supply children with health meals during lockdown.
In November, they handed out 200,000 meals to schools across the country.
Dale Vince, Forest Green Rover's Club Chairman, said:
"We first got involved early in the pandemic and sent a load of our burgers to the Nightingale Hospital in London to support the NHS.
"Then as the summer free school meal debacle came about we also got involved with that locally too.
"We donated meals to food banks and other community organisations who support people on low incomes".
The meals are free from all 14 main food allergens and because they're vegan they're also halal and kosher friendly.
Dale Vince added:
"We want to give kids access to super healthy food and particularly this kind of food can be a struggle for kids who are veggie or vegan to access at school.
"Our aim is to offer genuinely really healthy food to schools which is what we've done."
FGR expect to be supplying thousands of school by this time next year following their success.
Their factor, which is powered by the win and sun, can currently produce the equivalent of the body weight of two cows per day.
Later this year they'll expand the factory to produce 20 cow bodies worth per day - which is the equivalent of a small herd.
Dale continued:
"It is so popular with schools. We've got the price right, we've got the taste right and we've managed to get in into the wholesale distribution for schools to easily find the product range.
"Currently school dinners aren't good enough. We should have better school food and we should be able to feed kids who can't otherwise be fed by their families."